


you're the prayer inside me

by kingandqueeninthenorth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 19:08:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/840354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingandqueeninthenorth/pseuds/kingandqueeninthenorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They named her a bird and shut her away, but it is no easy thing to cage a wolf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're the prayer inside me

She can only endure the queen’s snide comments and Joffrey’s brutality for so long. King’s Landing is suffocating Sansa, choking the life from her with each passing day. She has grown weak and weary, and her knees threaten to buckle under the weight of her suffering.

_I must be brave,_ she tells herself each time Joff brings her before the court to be humiliated.  _Robb would want me to be brave. And he is coming._

—-

She waits for Robb.

Each new day offers hope that he may come, but it also means another day has passed where he didn’t.

_They’ll write songs about me, about how I waited for him to save me._

—-

She learns the truth about the queen and Jaime, and she isn’t as appalled as she should be. A part of her understands what they must feel for each other. There is undoubtedly a closeness between them that no one else is even capable of understanding.

Sansa knows the feeling.

—-

She dreams of him.

She sees him cutting down any man that stands in his way on his path to her. She dreams of calloused fingers raising gooseflesh on her arms as he traces a line from her shoulder blade to the inside of her elbow. She hears him saying her name in ecstasy.

She always wakes to a wetness between her thighs.

—-

She prays every day. She prays for the gods to spare her family and for Joffrey to have mercy on her. She prays for her own safety if the city should fall, and a way to escape Stannis’s army.  She prays for the queen’s death and the fall of the Lannisters.

But most of all, she prays for Robb.

  _Keep him safe. Bring him to me. Let us go home._

—-

The queen is too drunk to notice she has fled to her room, and for that much she is thankful. She bars her door and turns to find the Hound, bloody and stinking of sweat. He’s drunker than she’s ever seen him; he even seems scared. But he offers her a way out of the capital, and she goes.

The city is falling apart when they make their escape. The air smells of fire, and green flames rage in the distance. She forces herself to accept what the darkest corners of her mind have suspected all along.

_Robb isn’t coming._

_—-_

The Hound tells her they’re headed North, and tells her little else. He hardly speaks except to give her some gruff orders and occasionally mutters  _little bird_ in a tone that is almost affectionate.

“Are you taking me to my brother?” she asks as they sit beside their fire. It casts an eerie glow on the burnt side of the Hound’s face, making him look even more monstrous than she is used to.

“To your brother, at Riverrun. Might be that he’ll give me a place in his service if he’s smart.”

_He won’t. My brother is honorable, and you have done awful things._ She feels it with such certainty that she shouldn’t question it, but doubt creeps into her mind.  _I thought he’d come for me, and he didn’t. Maybe I don’t know Robb was well as I think I do._

She starts to open her mouth, to question him further, but he interrupts her.

“You ask too many questions, little bird.”

Her nails dig into her palm. Everything has been taken from her. She has lost her childhood, her innocence, and her dreams. The only thing left to her is her name.

_I’m not a bird. I am a wolf, and I bite._

_—-_

Her mother is hysterical when they are finally reunited. She clutches Sansa, stroking her hair and sobbing. The sound is strange, and it seems to Sansa that her mother hasn’t shed a tear in a very long time.

She is stiff when Robb hugs her. He is stronger than she remembers. His face and body are harder than when she last saw him. He’s a man grown, and a king. He isn’t her brother any longer.

_You didn’t come,_ she wants to scream.

“I thought we had lost you,” he breathes into her ear. His breath is warm, but she shivers.

_You did,_ she thinks.

—-

“He’s a big man, and many men are afraid of him. Might be that we should keep him around,” Edmure says. His voice is low, but it echoes through the empty hall and drifts through Sansa’s chamber door.

She lies awake, listening to Robb’s makeshift council.

“I won’t have him serving me,” Robb says. “He served the Lannisters. He was Joffrey’s sworn shield.”

“And he left Joffrey for you,” Edmure says.

“Did he? Or did he just want a reason to steal my sister away?” Robb’s voice is hard.

There’s silence and then, “He brought her to you.”

“I will not have a Clegane in my service.”

“He could’ve taken her anywhere, and he brought her here-”

“And I should trust him?”

“King Robb is right. We shouldn’t trust the man,” the Blackfish agrees.

“I said nothing of trust. I meant it would be in our favor to make use of him. It would be another insult to the Lannisters, if nothing else.”

“I’ve heard enough. I have no need of Sandor Clegane. He’s more monster than man,” Robb states with finality. “And I don’t like the way he leers at my sister.”

—-

She watches the Hound mount his horse.

“Come to see me off, little bird?” he asks gruffly as he swings into his saddle.

“I came to thank you,” she explains, ignoring the stares she receives from several of Robb’s men who mill about the yard. “You saved me. You probably saved my life.”

He grunts and turns his horse toward the gates. “Your brother is a bloody fool,” he growls. “A gallant fool calling himself a king, but a fool all the same.”

_He is,_ she thinks.  _But he is still twice the man you are._

Sandor Clegane gives her one last look over his shoulder and then gallops through the gates.

—-

Robb looks at her with concern over his plate. “Are you well?”

Sansa nods.

“You aren’t eating.”

_I’m stuffed full of lies and songs and broken promises. There isn’t any room for anything else._

—-

When she was young, she had night terrors so horrifying that she would wake screaming. Robb would always lift her from her bed and take her to his, whispering sweet nothings as she curled up beside him.

“There’s nothing to fear, Sansa,” he would say. “I will always come for you, I promise.”

—-

“One of the men found it at an abandoned camp,” Robb explains, tapping the side of the cage. The bird inside is a beautiful, multi-colored wonder that cocks its head at Robb when he speaks. “My men tell me it’s from the Summer Isles.”

Sansa stares at it.

“It can repeat a few words.” Robb whistles at the bird and it chirps. “Can you say  _pretty bird?”_

“ _Pretty bird,”_ it repeats, bobbing up and down with each word.  _“Pretty bird. Pretty bird.”_

He looks at her and smiles. “You try, Sansa.”

Her tongue feels too thick to speak.

Robb looks to the bird again and asks, “Can you say  _little bird?”_

_“Little bird. Little bird. Little bird.”_

She thinks of castles that feel like cages, and of burned faces with rough hands. She can hear the queen’s cruel remarks and feel the sting of a slap. She sees Joffrey and his wormy smile, and feels Littlefinger’s prying eyes.

Robb gives her a strange look. “Sansa?”

“Release it,” she commands with all the authority she can muster.

Her words hang in the air, brutal and cutting, and for a moment her brother does nothing but stare at her, expressionless.

One of the guards posted at the door puts a hand on the hilt of his sword. “You have no right to speak to your king that way.”

Sansa ignores the warning and turns to leave, but the guards step in front of the door.

“Leave her,” Robb barks from behind her.

They look to their king and then back to her before reluctantly opening the door. She’s halfway down the corridor before she hears the door close. It isn’t enough to block the sound of an angry shout and a metal cage clattering to the ground. She hears the frantic beat of wings and a frightened squawk.

And then she hears him throwing books and papers and maps about the room, each landing with a heavy thud as they fall to the floor.

She pretends she can’t hear a thing.

—-

Her mother’s voice is full of quiet concern. “Sansa, I’m worried about you.”

Sansa looks at her plate, which is untouched and cold. Food has lost most of its appeal. Every bite seems to taste of death and ash.

“You’ve barely touched your food. You eat like a bird.”

She lifts a spoonful of soup to her lips and swallows hard. She forces down every last bite.

She cleans her plate that night.

—-

She feels as though she is shedding her skin. Her feathers float away, and they’re replaced with thick fur. Her beak becomes a snout, full of sharp teeth that are meant for devouring rather than singing. Her wings disappear and she grows claws.

They named her a bird and shut her away, but it is no easy thing to cage a wolf.

—-

It occurs to her that she always knew the truth. It crept into her mind long ago, even before the Hound offered to help her escape. It was like a dark cloud, lurking at the edge of her thoughts. It pushed its way into her every day that he didn’t come.

_Robb isn’t a hero. He never was._

—-

She seeks him out for her mother’s benefit. Lady Catelyn fears that what little is left of her family is falling apart, and Sansa cannot bear to cause her mother any more suffering.

He orders the guards away and she’s left alone with him.

For the longest time, he says nothing. He pulls a chair out from the table for her, and she sits facing him. He leans over the table, eyes on the large map of Westeros he uses to strategize. At last, he says, “Why did Clegane save you?”

“I don’t know,” she says, somewhat truthfully.  _He felt something for me, maybe. He wanted me. But I don’t know why._

Robb looks uneasy. “Did he…”

He leaves his question unfinished, but the implication is enough. She wants to hear him say it. She wants him to taste the words, because she tasted the fear every day. “Did he what?”

He keeps his eyes on the map sprawled out on the table before him. He didn’t bother to put it away when she came in, and the wolf and lion figureheads remain strategically placed. Somehow, the lions look bigger than the wolves, and it gives her a sinking feeling.

Her king is surrounded. Krakens sit at Winterfell, and lions wait for him in the South.

“Did he…” he hesitates. “Did he touch you?”

She just looks at him.

Robb drags a hand down his face. “Did he rape you?”

“No.”

Robb looks relieved and for a brief moment, he looks like the boy she left at Winterfell. It fills her with a want that leaves an ache deep inside of her. A want for him, a want for who he was, and a want for home. But she can’t have any of it.

 Sansa knows she shouldn’t say anything more. He is her king now, and she can’t speak to him as a sister would. She has no right to speak against him, no right to defy him. But she has spent far too much time holding her tongue. She has no more lies and no more patience.

Silence and lies belonged to the bird, and she’s a wolf now.

“But he could have. You left me to him.”

Robb looks taken aback.

“He rescued me, but all I ever wanted was you.”

“Sansa, please…”

“He cared more for me than you ever did.”

Robb’s jaw is clenched tight, as are his fists. He swallows hard, his body rigid.

Her words were harsh and she didn’t mean them, but she’s said them and it’s done. They leave a sour taste in her mouth. Something inside her crumbles and her rage melts away. Her voice is tremulous as she says, “I waited for you.”

“I know,” he whispers, his voice breaking.

“He came and you never did.” She shakes her head, tears brimming in her eyes.

She looks at Robb and for the first time in a very long time, she sees him. His clothes are unkempt and unbuttoned, his shirt falling open to show the hard muscles of his chest. His beard has grown longer than she’s ever seen it, and it’s matted and tangled. His face falls naturally into a frown, the lines around his mouth making him look twice his age.

Her brother is falling apart.

She looks away from him, only then noticing that his iron crown sits beside her. “I’m not worth much to you, it would seem. I was not worth the Kingslayer, and not worth enough effort to even try to come for me.”

“I wanted to,” he says, sinking to his knees before her. “But I couldn’t…”

“You’re a king, and you can do as you like.” Joffrey had taught her that. “But I know how you value your crown, Your Grace.”

He puts his hands on her legs, gripping her gown and looking up at her from where he kneels. He reaches for her hands and she lets him take them, but she makes to move to hold onto him.

His voice is quiet. “Do you think I wanted this? This ever growing kingdom? This crown? This war?”

She says nothing.

“It hardly matters now, I suppose. Because it would seem I have all of them,” Robb says bleakly. He pulls away from her and stands, looking at the map once again. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. I can’t forgive myself.”

“Robb,” she says in a weary voice. His name tastes unfamiliar on her tongue. “I just want to go home.”

He picks up a kraken figure and tightens his fist around it. “I wish I could give you that.”

The tears resurface and this time they fall. She picks up his worthless crown and stands, launching it with all her strength at the far wall. It makes a terribly heavy noise as it falls to the ground, the metal sound echoing throughout the room.

_The King in the North, now in title only._

Robb sweeps his hand across the table, knocking everything to the floor. Sansa watches as his little world he has built falls apart.

—-

He closes the door to her solar and then drops to one knee in front of her. He stares at her for a long time before he manages to speak. “I’m leaving tomorrow at dawn.”

_You’re leaving me again._  She only nods.

He takes her hand and kisses the back of it before he pulls her toward him and kisses her forehead. “I love you, Sansa.”

She swallows the lump in her throat.

“Will you pray for my return?” he asks softly.  His eyes are so miserable and sincere. His voice is a pained whisper. “Do you want me to return at all?”

She nods again.

A smile ghosts over his lips and his eyes fall to her lap. “Could I leave you with something, then?”

She nods once more, and she doesn’t stop him when he puts his hands beneath her gown. He grips her ankles and drags his hands up her legs, pushing her skirt up around her waist. She watches him with fascination as he dips his head, and she can feel his beard dragging against the soft skin on the inside of her thighs.

She drops back against the bed as he presses kisses to the inside curve of her leg and hip. Then he kisses her core, and his tongue runs along her folds. She says his name like she did when she believed in him, when he was the only word spoken in her prayers. The ice in her melts, and Robb licks it away.

She arches her back and he pulls her closer, draping her legs over his shoulders and then sighing her name into her skin as she tightens around him.

Her insides clench and it’s the sweetest feeling.

—-

She sees him off with their mother, saying nothing. Lady Catelyn takes Sansa’s hand and holds tight. They watch as Robb mounts his horse, looking sharp and lethal in his armor. The boy king hardly looks like a boy with a sword at his hip and a deadly look in his eyes.

He nods to them before he takes off. They watch him gallop through the gates, his army following behind him.

And he leaves her waiting once more.


End file.
